Darkspace Calamity

by Christopher Bodan

  Kate nodded after a heartbeat.

  “And as a Knight, she has a tendency to find trouble. So, we create trouble for her to find.”

  The pirate chewed on that thought for a moment. “Aye, there’s something in that. As I think on it, they did head off in the direction of Ulyxis, not a straight course, mind you, but nearby.”

  “Perhaps he is trying to conceal her in a place of safety,” Mamaro To said.

  Zineda grinned. “Then Nozuki smiles on us, for we have found our way. We will attack Ulyxis. We will sack her home world. If she is there, we will find her. If she is not, then she will know that her people and her family will fill our slave pens, and its treasures will overflow your holds. No Knight of her reputation could stay away from such a fight. You get your ransom and more. We get our prize.”

  The glimmer of greed that flashed in Kate’s eyes gratified and revolted Zineda in equal measure. “That’s a sweet, tempting offer, I admit, but I don’t have the men or ships to sack a whole world, let alone—”

  “Your men are ill-suited to such large scale ground warfare,” Mamaro To cut in. “Mine are not. Likewise, your crews and ships are skilled at naval engagements and boarding actions, yes?”

  Kate nodded, intrigued.

  “There again my priestess is wise, for our skills complement each other perfectly.” He put his hand up to forestall Kate’s objections. “You require time to assemble your captains, of course. We need time to gather our strength as well. We will also undertake raids near this Ulyxis to draw off its defenders. Even Alliance Security cannot be everywhere at once. How long do you require to prepare?”

  Zineda could see Kate’s reservations falling away before her warlord’s simple assurances and the lure of all that plunder. “Two weeks, standard, to get everything ready and make the trip.” She nodded firmly. “We can meet you in orbit over Ulyxis in two weeks.”

  Mamaro To nodded back, equally firm. “Then we shall be there in two of your Alliance standard weeks. Do not fail in this, Captain Calico Kate, and you shall have treasures beyond your dreams.” He turned and strode back through the rift.

  “Just make sure you get your ugly carcasses there on time,” Kate replied, holstering her pistol.

  Zineda nodded to the pirate queen and followed her warlord. The rift wavered and gratefully closed behind her. She took a few breaths to gratefully soak in the familiar sounds and scents of her home. Then she turned to her warlord.

  “There is something hidden here,” she said.

  He paused in his instructions to his Hatriya to look questioningly at her.

  “I have an instinct for deception, else I should not have long survived in Nozuki’s temple. The pirate was holding something back, or there is something that she did not know.”

  Mamaro To considered for a few seconds. Then he dismissed his Hatriya and strode over to the high priestess. “Perhaps,” he said in a low voice. “But I think it matters little. Your plan is a good one. Whatever misdirections the pirate might try or misinformation she might possess will wilt in the heat of raw battle. We shall draw out our prize and claim it regardless of any deception.”

  “And then,” she said, touching his chin, “the great work can truly begin.” One of her priestesses cleared her throat a few steps away. Zineda’s eyes narrowed, and she growled as she stepped closer. “Speak.”

  “High lady.” The young woman kept her eyes firmly on the floor. “We have visitors to see you both. Kasaro To is here. So is the Herald, and she brought another. They await you in the conclave chamber.”

  Zineda started. “Another? Of the Herald’s own kind?”

  The priestess nodded. “Another pale one, female, and clearly subordinate. The Anointed One, however, has brought many of the Kyojin with him.”

  “Of course he has.” Zineda rolled her eyes. “Send them our greetings, and say that we shall receive them shortly. Bring refreshments and make note of all that they consume.”

  The priestess could not help smiling slightly, though she still did not look Zineda in the eye. “We offered them simple fare, as a courtesy, and slipped an extra dose of sedatives into the berserkers’ soup. The Kyojin will be lucky if they can stay awake.”

  Zineda shared the grin. “Well done. Go and see that they are comfortable and watched.”

  The priestess nodded and scurried away.

  Zineda returned to Mamaro To, her jaw firmly set, and shook her head at his curious look. “The slaver has come with his entourage. To talk, it seems.”

  The warlord’s expression remained neutral, but his grip tightened on the vambrace in his hand as he removed his armor.

  “There is more. He has brought the Herald and one other of her kind.”

  Mamaro To looked genuinely shocked. “Another?” He paused, considering, and moved mechanically to let the slaves remove the rest of his armor. “I suppose there must be others. I had simply never considered it.” He shook his head, his words mirroring Zineda’s thoughts exactly. “We have dealt with the Herald alone for so long that I never gave it enough thought.” He frowned as he shrugged on his more formal robes that covered the angles of his body but left his powerful arms and deeply muscled, scarred chest exposed. “I wonder what this portends.”

  “Opportunity,” Zineda replied. She waved away the slaves that came to take her limited vestments. “Come. Let us see what opportunity they have brought us.”

  Chapter 7

  Black Spot pirate ship, unnamed berth, Star Nebula

  Vance sat in his wide cabin flanked by his bosun, Johnny Patchwork, on one side and Mr. Skreev on the other. Before them sat a small gray-haired mechanic who twitched nervously and adjusted his small glasses every few seconds with grease-stained fingers.

  “I’m telling you, capt’n, I can’t make up nor down of it.” The mechanic shrugged for the fifth time in two minutes. “She’s a chee, like any other I’ve seen. She weren’t built as one, that’s the truth, more like as an automated maid, like she looks. Somehow, her neural net expanded and she, just, woke up, I guess.” He shrugged again, and Vance had to restrain himself from ripping the man’s arms off. “She don’t seem special in any way. I’m sorry.”

  Golden Vance sighed heavily and finished his grog. “Not your fault. I knew this would be a knotty puzzle, but we had to start somewhere.”

  He nodded toward the door, and the mechanic gratefully fled with several near-bows and a continuous stream of mumbled apologies. When the door shut, Vance swore and slammed his mechanical fist onto the table. Johnny Patchwork, a lumbering chee composed of parts as mismatched as his captain’s, placed a fresh mug of grog beside the new dent in the tabletop.

  “What in the rotting stars am I supposed to do with a super-powerful artifact,” Vance complained to no one, “when she don’t seem to be anything more than a mechanical maid?”

  Mr. Skreev scratched at the stubble on his deeply scarred jaw. “Well, you could ransom her, I guess.”

  “To who?” he demanded. “Who would believe in her worth?” He turned an accusing metal finger on his cypher, who floated dejectedly in a far corner piled with discarded clothing. “You told me she was valuable, you stinking faithless fish.”

  “A treasure beyond price,” Minnow said, again. She had the same firm tone she had used on the Tranquil Wind, though her heart clearly was not in it.

  “Anything beyond price is no good to me,” Vance shouted, “when the price is all that matters.” He cursed colorfully and downed his grog. “The bloody crick of it is, I can see it,” he said, leaning across the table toward Mr. Skreev.

  The bosun poured more grog.

  “With her sight, I could see it. Esper poured out of that maid like an endless fountain. She shone like a star. But we’ve poked and prodded her every which way and learned nothing. She is something special, no doubt. But that does us not a bit of good if we don’t know why.” He sat back, putting his feet on the table with a bang, and swirled his drink as he contemplated the stars. “Someone knows.
Someone somewhere knows what she is.”

  “Probably Harker knows,” the bosun said. The words weren’t directed at Vance, but the captain glared up at the misshapen chee all the same.

  “Let that idiot nobleman rot in whatever hole he’s found. I only want to see that cowardly, double-crossing pretty boy again if I’m putting a blade through his back, and for nothing else.”

  The crewmen all muttered dark agreements as their captain drank to that glorious day.

  “You know who might know something,” Mr. Skreev said, speculatively, after a silent moment, “is Squall. She high-tailed it out of the starliner almost as fast as Harker did after Minnow called that maid the Source.”

  Vance cursed again. “She’s a spy. A bloody nursemaid sent by Kate to keep me in line, and the less I see of her, the better.” He paused suddenly, sitting up, and a cagey look dropped over his heavy features. “Wait. Where is she? Before the raid, that meddlesome fire-hair hadn’t been more than a dozen paces from me. I’ve not seen so much as a glimpse of her in the six days since.”

  The bosun automatically glanced around the cabin. The chee had his uses, but he also had a number of obvious shortcomings.

  Vance sighed. “Mr. Skreev has a good point. If anyone aboard is likely to know something of this Source, it’s Squall. And now I think of it, I don’t like not knowing where she’s at.” He turned a malevolent look on Skreev. “Find the witch, keep her contained, and call me.”

  Skreev nodded, malice glittering in his dark eyes, and strode out.

  “We’ll turn some profit from this yet,” Vance said as the bosun refilled his mug. “Just you wait and see.”

  A signal whistle blew through the cabin. Vance sighed and cursed again as he hit the blinking light on his chair’s worn arm to silence the sound. “What is it?”

  “Message coming in, capt’n,” the comm man on duty said over the link. “It’s from Kate.”

  “Of course it is,” Vance muttered. “Put her through, then.” Golden Vance rose and walked to the center of the cabin as the cobbled-together holodisplay creaked and sparked out of the ceiling. The display flickered and blinked but steadied as Calico Kate’s viciously beautiful features came into focus. “Your highness-ness.”

  Kate’s smile never wavered, but her voice had a knife’s sharp edge. “Mind your manners, Vance. This is business. We’ve a chance of a huge haul, but it comes at great risk. Are you game for some serious cutthroatery?”

  Vance laughed, short and harsh. “When am I not?”

  “Well good, but be sure. We’re raiding a planet.”

  Vance’s eyebrows shot up.

  Kate nodded. “It gets worse. We’re raiding Ulyxis.”

  “But—” he stammered, “but that’s—”

  “Impossible. Aye, it would be, save that we’ve some rather disposable allies. We can expect to see a large part of Dragon Fleet To there alongside us, doing most of the heavy lifting on the ground.”

  “The—The noh?” Golden Vance found himself actually speechless. “What in all the empty stars is this, Kate?”

  “It’s a better deal than we might have got,” she replied. Her face fell just a bit but enough for Vance to realize that this was more than just a ‘good opportunity.’ “We’re to handle things in space while they hit the surface. Once we’ve got orbit secured, we follow up behind ‘em and grab everything that’s not nailed down. When we’ve got what we can get, we run for it.”

  “And they’ll just let us go?”

  Kate shrugged. “They’re not after loot. I don’t even think they’re after slaves this time. The warlord’s hot for some sort of holy relic or some-such.” She frowned and glanced aside, as if she had heard something, but turned back quickly. “It’s nothing to do with us. They’ve given up their share of whatever we take.”

  “That’s a bit too generous, if you ask me,” Vance said, also frowning. Now that he listened, he thought he could hear something too—an echo somewhere.

  “Well I didn’t, and I don’t care. They get our help topside, and we get their booty dirtside.” She glanced around again, irritated.

  “And if they change their minds, or think we’ve left too early?”

  “Let ‘em come,” Kate said with vicious defiance, and Vance wondered if that was to convince him or her. He definitely heard an echo from her transmission that time, though. “What is that?”

  Vance glanced over at the bosun. The chee had started fiddling with the comms console almost as soon as the transmission began. He shook his head. “Not sure, capt’n, but I think there’s another terminal open somewhere.”

  Golden Vance clenched his mechanical fist hard enough to strain the servos and hissed, “Find it. Trace it back. Two-gets-you-ten it’s the witch.” He glanced at Kate, but she appeared not to have heard them. He took a breath to keep his voice even. “Some sort of double up on the receivers. Like they’re registering the signal twice.”

  “You’re overdue to fix that bucket, Vance,” Kate said with a studied smugness. “And soon you’ll be able to in style. Be over Ulyxis with all your people in two weeks.”

  “One last thing, oh Pirate Queen,” he said, sneering. “Will the good Captain Harker be present for this?”

  “No,” Kate replied a touch too quickly. “I’ve sent word out, but Harker’s got too much to answer for. That suit you?”

  “Wonderfully well,” Vance replied with transparently false courtesy.

  Kate cut the transmission before he could.

  He rounded on the bosun. “Well?”

  “Almost. It’s somewhere in the lower decks.”

  Vance gritted his teeth. “I know where.” He slammed his hand down onto his chair arm and opened a comm line directly to Mr. Skreev. “Emergency control room, by engineering. She might still be there.” He grabbed his weapons as he bolted for the door.

  Racing down half a dozen decks, he shoved and shouted his men out of the way until he burst into the grimy, cramped, and musty access ways just forward of engineering. About twenty yards ahead of him, several burly crewmembers stood tense near a small bulkhead door, clearly added well after the ship was built. A bolt of esperic lightning arced from the doorway and blasted a man clean off his feet. The air smelled of ozone and tasted of blood.

  Mr. Skreev stood sheltered behind the entrance to the access way. “You’re only making it worse for yourself,” he shouted at Squall. He nodded to his captain as Vance approached from the opposite direction. “Once we get a few chee and some of the bigger hands down here, you’ll be in for it. Give up now, and we’ll go easy.”

  Squall said nothing, and for a second, Vance thought they might actually have to blast her out. Then she darted clear of the door, her staff leveled at Skreev. Golden red esper danced around her like St. Elmo’s Fire. Vance launched toward her and summoned his own power around him.

  Squall felt it an instant too late. Her lightning bolt went wide, skittering along the walls and conduits like water on a hot pan. She tried to turn, but Vance barreled into her, and the staff went flying. He pinned her under his knees, until he could get his flesh hand over her mouth and his mechanical hand on her throat. Once she was immobilized, he hauled her up, her feet dangling well above the deck plating, and panted into her face.

  “Well, my lovely,” he said, still a bit breathless. “I wondered when it would come to this. And who have you been talking to, then? Does dear Calico Kate know about our prize? I dare say if not, then she will soon. Well, no matter, truly. She won’t care now, not with a whole planet to plunder. And if she ever does, she’s welcome to try and take it.” He leaned in and watched the fear and revulsion deepen in Squall’s eyes. “Fact is, I rather hope she does try. We’re long overdue to clear the air, she and I. Meantime, little witch, we’ve got plans for you.” He turned to the crewmen. “Get the injured up to sick bay, and clear a path to the hold. Prep the suppression cage right next to the chee. This one’s going to watch her precious Source squirm until she tells us what the
chee is and how to get paid for her.”

  He laughed as he dragged the struggling pirate out, her muffled screams lost in the narrow, echoing passage.

  Chapter 8

  Lucky Chance, slip space

  Kisa barely noticed Candy’s presence in the round room anymore. She had started coming in while Kisa meditated, and as far as either the Knight or Fiametta could tell, Candy just lay there looking at the stars. Even Scratch had accepted her quickly, and he and Candy tended to curl up on some of the cushions and conspire. The Alliance Knight was not, in herself, disturbing. Her presence was just a constant reminder of how Not Right the situation had become, even if she did not actively disrupt matters. Indeed, aside from the occasional little verbal barb between her and Fiametta, Candy fit in like she had been with them for years. Even the tiffs had lost their venom and verve. It was almost like the two continued to snipe at each other as a game.

  But despite the familiarity, Kisa still could not concentrate especially well, and the message alert chime that Fiametta had hurried off to answer a few minutes before had not helped. Kisa sighed and opened her eyes. She felt a little surge of reassuring esper and saw Scratch lean in to rub against her knee. She scratched him on the head.

  Fiametta came back into the room at a jog. Candy sat up slowly, but Kisa stood in an instant. The expression on Fiametta’s face chilled her.

  “What is it?”

  “That was Squall, again,” Fiametta said, a little breathless. “We have to change course.”

  “What happened? What’s wrong?” Kisa demanded.

  Fiametta had gone white. “Vance. Golden Vance has the Source. And he’s heading for Ulyxis.”

  “What?” Candy and Kisa asked together.

  “I don’t know the details, but Squall was listening in on a transmission between Calico Kate and Golden Vance. Kate has apparently made some kind of devil’s bargain with the noh. She’s calling all her captains. They’re going to raid Ulyxis!”